Monday, April 16, 2012

April Platform Challenge: Day 16

Well, we're now past the half-way point in this challenge. In a little over two weeks, we've connected to four social media sites, written at least two blog posts, defined ourselves and our goals, and quite a bit more. Time to hit the second half!

Deliver your blog posts to readers via e-mail.

For today's challenge, add an e-mail feed to your blog. There are many ways to increase traffic to your blog, but one that has paid huge dividends for MNINB is adding Feedblitz to the blog.

As the subscribers to my e-mail feed have increased, my blog traffic has increased as well. In fact, after great content, I'd say that adding share buttons (from Day 7) and an e-mail feed are the top two ways to build traffic.

Though I have an account on Tumblr, I'm just not sure if it offers some kind of e-mail/RSS feed service.

The reason I think e-mail feeds are so useful is that they pop into my inbox whenever a new post is up, which means I can check it very easily on my phone when I'm waiting somewhere. In fact, this is how I keep up with several of my favorite blogs. It's just one more way to make your blog content accessible to readers in a variety of formats.

If I remember, this task didn't take me long to add, but I've been grateful for finally getting around to adding it ever since.

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Question: If your readers get your blog post through their e-mail, does that lessen the number of views on your blog? In other words, if all my readers got my post on their email would I suddenly have no page views on my actual blog? I have an email icon but wasn't sure how that worked.

Apparently, I'm the clueless one. I'm struggling. I got the Feedburner part done, but my Wordpress account looks different than what they're showing. Am I the only one? Will be back to figure it out later today.

Done! I already had an email option, but today I finally figured out how to move it up in my righthand feed, so it appears next to the newest poem, instead of way down at the bottom. Moved the share buttons, too. Yay.

I do have to note that I have trouble receiving email updates myself, for any blog that isn't Wordpress (like mine). Anybody else have that issue? Some Blogger blogs, in particular, I just never get the notifications.

Uh oh. Here's what I wordpress "help" says about plugins on Wordpress.com: "Plugins are not permitted here at WordPress.com for various security reasons..." So unless I can figure this out, I guess I fail today's challenge.

Anybody else have a self-hosted blog at wordpress.COM, not wordpress.org, who might have tips for me? Drat.

As a couple of people already mentioned, I'm done...I think. I followed the stuff for Blogger, but I can't really tell a difference. Where it says to find something in a subscription form, I'm completely lost. I've looked everywhere on my formatting page and I have no idea what it's talking about, which is sad because I'm usually at least passable with these kinds of things.

Hi, I'm using FeedBurner as opposed to FeedBlitz, but I'm glad you pointed me toward this resource, albeit a paid one. I'm told my FeedBurner is delayed as much as a day in how it transmits updates, so the small fee might be worth considering if my reader base ever gets large enough to invest in.

Using Feedburner, Feedblitz, MailChimp, built-in feed tools, etc.--all are fine. I just mentioned a version that includes instructions on how to add to multiple blogging platforms.

To answer the question about traffic, I'm not sure if you do get a hit if someone views the post in their e-mail. But for me, I don't care if I do or don't. I just want to stay visible and connected to my audience.

I can say that the subscriber total on my e-mail feed has nearly quadrupled since the beginning of the year, but it hasn't hurt my traffic. In fact, as of today, I've already matched my traffic--over the course of the whole year--from 2011.

For those with wordpress.com blogs which don't allow plug-ins, simply use the email subscription widget available in the standard widgets. It may not be the particular one that Robert suggested, but it does the trick. That's what I used when I had a wordpress.com blog. (I've switched to a self-hosted wordpress.org blog because I wanted to be able to use plug-ins.

To take a look at the subscription possibilities I have on my blog, to give you ideas for your own (if you can add plugins), you can look along the sidebar of my blog at http://www.bethstilborn.com (Click my name and you'll automatically be taken to my blog)

This one was really hard. In fact, I'm not even convinced it's useful for a brand new blog that nobody's following. However, i committed to learn this, and I am (more or less) learning. Today I couldn't have done it without my daughter and her boyfriend helping. I was ready to give up, but they persisted.Gerry, we had the same problem. You have to be sure to click on the wordpress.com selector. I wish I could give more specific advice, but I still don't really understand how they got it to work.Hate this challenge. It's like eating vegetables, or exercising.

All done. And in figuring it out, I found out that I have more subscribers through FeedBurner than what appears as subscribers to the blog itself; only 37 and 33 respectively, but still ... that's a big number in my book!! :)

I don't know if I'm "done" or not. I have a website with a blog so the information for "Blogger," etc. doesn't work for me. However, I have both a "Subscribe to my e-mail list" tool and an RSS feed on my blog. Are those the same as feedburner, etc.? I don't know if people get my blog automatically or if they can just check the feed to see if anything is new. I'm a bit confused . . .

Jen, (for Blogger), sign in to your Dashboard and click on Design. Then Add a Gadget. The e-mail option will be one of the top choices because it's "New." Then move it around in Design mode to where you want it and click Save.

Rob and Ann, I didn't realize this before, but Subscribe/RSS is for people to follow your blog in an online reader, such as Google Reader. Which means they have to make the effort to go look at their reader, and they may miss your post. The e-mail option delivers it to them and reminds them about your post.

I signed up for my own blog. I didn't realize that Blogger e-mail and FeedBurner are the same. I liked the witty e-mail interaction.

I have the same question a lot of other people have - if I already have a subscribe by email button on my blog - is that the same as a feedburner? I seem to have all the stats collection info, email notifications, etc already.

Still - I went through the process of subscribing and it told me I had done so successfully but nothing changed on my site.

Hmmm...this is the first techno thing I have been unable to figure out.

I took the weekend off because of nice weather in the PNW. Today, I put a new face on my web site http://www.tincupnomore.com because we had morning rain. The next rainy day, I'll try to catch up with 14, 15 and 15, but I think I am already close.

I do get a hit on my primary e-mail when someone comments on my blog and have hits from Twitter, LinkedIn.

Like a few others, I found today's challenge a bit more complicated than it sounded. (Meaning: I couldn't accomplish it before leaving for the day job this morning!)

In my case, I had to check in w/my website's designer (I've tried to make my site a hub for everything I do, including my two blogs). So there IS a subscribe by email option now, but we're still tweaking some other changes in the layout that may be needed to accompany the accompanying changes, if that makes any sense.

In other words, the task is done, but some after-tasking remains. But I think all of the effort will be worth it. Robert, you make a convincing case for the e-mail subscription option! Thank you.

I'm not sure if you do get a hit if someone views the post in their e-mail. But for me, I don't care if I do or don't. I just want to stay visible and connected to my audience.

WTH, Robert?! Just because YOU have 13 THOUSAND followers on your blog doesn't mean us peons don't overanalyze every measly hit we get! Call me petty, but this peasant from the bottom of the bloggy food chain wants to know if my blog will still get a hit if a person reads my blog on email or a reader or whatnot instead of clicking onto my blog.

Okay, that was something I've never done before, I just hope I did it right. I'm going to have to start modifying all the widgets on both of my blogs because now there seem to be too many. (hcfitzpatrick.com & myquirkycity.blogspot.com)

I couldn't make FeedBurner work because I didn't have a way to install the chiclet, BUT I already had a FOLLOW THIS BLOG BY EMAIL widget, so I moved it up the left column. MUCH better now! Soooooo, DONE!

Update for Susan Craig, or Bob:Hmmm, I hopped around on the Wordpress site and I think I found the subscription box you mentioned, Susan, so I clicked it and it brought me to a Yahoo page I sometimes see (an alternate? I think to the one I usually open).

Done! I'm catching up here after a week's holiday. So I now added FeedBurner, but the same thing is happening that happened before: the email content doesn't show the details of the blog, and what comes through is an email with photos. At least now there aren't automatic "typos" which happened before. But how can I get my blog to look like my Blog, rather than looking like an email, to get to people who sign up to receive it?

I think I have done it but not sure. I already had an email subscribe widget on my Wordpress blog, and an RSS feed for both posts and comments. I activated through Feedburner just now, but nothing seems to have changed. Still, I have the functionality so I say I am done!

Can you please explain what an "email Feed" is and how is this is different from what happens when someone subscribes to my Wordpress site? Is the subscription on Wordpress good only if the subscriber already has a wordpress account? I have subscaribed to some other wordpress blogs and I get a feed directly to email - if i add this will folks who don't have a Wordpress account get something better than they can get now?

Finally done to my satisfaction. I had an email "join" option, but it wasn't as automated as I would like. Now moving to MailChimp and fixing Mr RSS feed (cuz FeedBlitz had a really cumbersome interface). Onward!